On Wednesday March 5th we received a phone call that I missed while getting ready for work from our friend Melanie - the wife of Brent, one of Rick's friends in Optometry School. I texted her at work to see what was up and she gave us the shocking news that Brent has passed away the night before. Shock is the only way I can describe our reaction...Melanie let us know that night that there would be a Memorial Service for Brent in Marana, Arizona on March 8th and his funeral would be in Heber City, Utah, where he grew up, on March 12th. Without giving it a second thought I got work covered for me and Rick contacted his office and had them clear his schedule until March 17th so we could hit the road early the next morning to make our way down to Arizona.
On our way down we went through Las Vegas...I have never been and have been bugging Rick FOREVER to go. We spent an entire TWO hours there and once we were back in the car the kids commented we didn't even see one slot machine...so I'm not sure we can even count it as a Vegas trip.
We did make it to the M&M Factory after driving down the strip.
We were excited to get a random assortment of M&Ms with flavors like raspberry that we hadn't even heard of before...talk about all the CRAZY colors they came in.
Even though Blake hasn't followed NASCAR for a few years, he was excited to see Kyle Bush's car.
Then we watched the 3D movie and hit the road for...
...Hoover Dam. Rick was content just driving past for a quick view but they built a new road and the only way to see it is to get off the freeway, so we did a few of the view points and drove around a little before heading back on our way.
The Memorial Service was great...kind of like an Open House. Lots of food, all kinds of pictures and a fun slide show of Brent's life. We were excited to see how many pictures we were in since we haven't seen the Bullocks in about 5 years. The entire way from Phoenix to Marana the kids were amazed by all of the Saguaro cacti and really wanted to touch one. They were in luck! After the Memorial Service we went over to the Bullock's house and they had a great big one in their front yard.
As you can imagine, it didn't go very well!
Ashlyn was smart enough to let Blake try it first.
We had fun hanging out out their house, visiting with other friends from Optometry School, swimming in their beautiful pool and reminiscing about the old days. We also had fun eating at places we don't have here in Washington like In and Out, Chilis, Arctic Circle and of course....
...MANY trips to QT!! We were sad that we passed the Steak n Shakes in Vegas and Mesa in the mornings so we didn't get a chance to get any tasty shakes or cheesy shoestring fries, dang it.
One of the days we were were in Arizona, the boys headed up to Mesa to catch a Cubs Spring Training game...
...while all the girls went out to lunch and got their nails done.
On our way to Utah for the funeral we stopped in Phoenix to see Rick's dad's grave site. He took Blake after the baseball game and had a hard time reading the cemetery map and took over an hour to find it...only to realize they parked 30 feet away from it and had just gone the wrong direction. When we went as a family he was able to go straight to it though.
Next stop....
...The Grand Canyon! The kids were AMAZED when we came up the trail and finally got a view...their reactions were priceless.
We wanted to rent bikes and take a few trails, but my joints were bothering me too much from driving so much, so we opted to walk one of the main trails and called it good instead.
Blake had fun trying to take selfies of himself...
We stayed the night in Page, Arizona, which was Rick's first area out of the MTC on his mission. He even got to do our laundry at his old laundry mat! He drove us around town, showed us his old apartment, and took us to walk the bridge over Glenn Canyon.
It was beautiful!
The morning after we got to Utah was Brent's funeral.
(Melaine and his daughters Emily-17, Jane-14 and Olivia-3 at the cemetery)
Melanie is an awesome woodworker and ended up making Brent's box he was buried in. She did a BEAUTIFUL job...we stayed up with her until the wee hours of the morning each night chatting with her while she worked on it. She even included the Boston Red Sox logo on it.
The day after the funeral everybody needed a little fun and excitement to get their minds off of things, so we headed to Boondocks and we got everybody an all-access pass to mini golf, simulators, 4D movies, lazer tag, bumper boats, video games...
...and go carts. Just what everybody needed - a little fun to spice things ups. The kids had a blast!
Since we were in Utah for a few days we figured we would get all the "Mormon sightseeing" done so we didn't have to come back to the state again.
The Assembly Hall
The Tabernacle
We spent lots of time walking around the North Visitors Center, but this display was the kids' favorite. It was a globe with Book of Mormons printed in TONS of languages all around it. Most of the languages we hadn't even heard of, so they had fun looking up where they each came from.
Then we got a really cool tour of the Conference Center, complete with walking up on the roof.
That place is AMAZING! If you haven't seen it, there isn't words to describe it...but it does make me really, really want to attend conference. Rick has no desire so if anybody wants to go, let me know and maybe we can plan for next Spring's. And I really want to do a session in the Salt Lake Temple, which Rick has no interest in either.
All said and done we drove over 3,400 miles during our 9 day adventure, leaving with about 12 hours notice. Even though it was under sad circumstances, we had a GREAT time with the Bullocks and a WONDERFUL time sightseeing along our way.
